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As an Olympic veteran and Canada’s only multiple gold medallist from Vancouver, Charles Hamelin is a treasure trove of knowledge for any speed skater. But no one wants to room with him in Sochi.

That’s because he’ll put his head on a pillow and there it will stay for 9 or even 10 uninterrupted hours of sleep, each and every night.

It doesn’t matter that he’ll be under enormous pressure to deliver gold medals on the biggest sporting stage in the world. It doesn’t matter what time zone he’s in or what team drama might be going on. None of it ever affects him.

“He can turn his brain off and sleep. That’s a gift,” said his younger brother Francois Hamelin, who will also compete in short-track in Sochi.

“It’s a helpful skill,” admits Charles who knows just how much it annoys his teammates who often find themselves stressed, jet-lagged and wide-awake.

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Charles Hamelin powers his way to gold in the 500-metre short track final at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Charles Hamelin shows the depth of his commitment to Olympic success. (Twitter photo)

The ability to show up for a race perfectly rested is just one element of the many Charles has put together to get to the top of his sport.

The sleep was easy; he’s had to work hard on the others.

He’s physically strong, so strong that he can lead a race from the front, while others conserve energy by drafting, and still have the finishing kick to win. He’s also become one of the best technical skaters and his race smarts — vital in a sport notoriously unpredictable and full of crashes — have improved dramatically.

None of that happened overnight.

Charles is the most famous of the Hamelin brothers from Ste-Julie, Que., but it’s actually his younger brother Francois who first got him on the ice.

When he was six, Francois, urged by his mother to find an outlet for his energy outside of her kitchen, flipped through the city activity book and picked speed skating based on little more than a few fond memoires of skating with his family on the lake.

Charles picked it up a year later when he was 10 years old.

He didn’t excel right away. In fact his father Yves Hamelin, once their coach and now the short track program director for Speed Skating Canada, remembers one provincial event where Francois stood on several podiums and his older brother came dead last.

But years of working on his strength and technique paid off at 16 when Charles had a breakthrough year. He climbed rapidly through world juniors all the way to the senior national team when he was 18.

“I created a monster,” said Francois.

He’s talking about the whole family following him into the sport – Charles and his girlfriend two-time Olympic short-track medallist Marianne St-Gelais, younger brother Mathieu who competed for a time and coach dad—but it’s also an apt description of Charles on the ice.

In 2010 Vancouver, he won Olympic gold medals in the 500m and 5,000m relay — with just 30 minutes rest in between — and in 2006 Turin, he won silver in the 5,000m relay. He has eight world titles.

In the four World Cups leading into the 2014 Olympics Sochi alone, he won 8 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medal in individual and relay events. That brings his lifetime tally to an astounding 103 World Cup medals, according to the International Skating Union and puts him just a couple behind all-time super stars of Russian Victor Ahn (110) and American Apolo Anton Ohno (108).

But the really daunting bit, for the athletes on the start line with him in Sochi anyway, is that he thinks he’s stronger than ever.

“I’m more difficult to beat,” he said. “I’m a better athlete than I was in Vancouver and I’m confident to say it.”

“Charles is absolutely on fire,” agreed teammate Michael Gilday, recalling the first World Cup of the season in Shanghai, China. “He pulled the whole distance from start to finish and we were sitting in the back watching the skaters from other countries and everyone had their jaws dropped open.”

At 29 years old, with bags full of medals, he still shows no sign of letting up.

“Young athletes want what they don’t have,” said head coach Derrick Campbell. “Charles has had it for a long time and that’s a bigger accomplishment because he’s never slowed down, he’s never rested on his performances of the past. He just gets better,” he said.

“Charles is like a machine.”

He did tweet a picture of his back covered in a tattoo that depicts his skin being torn away and the Olympic rings resting on a metal body.

“It’s an awesome feeling to win a medal in a sport that I love,” he said.

“When you have those emotions and feelings you just want to have more of them. It’s one of the big motivations for me to continue year after year. I want to win more medals, I want to be better at what I do.”

The key to that, he said, is controlling his emotions during races.

If someone passed him in a race, especially if they do it in a sloppy manner, he has a tendency to get mad and race back up to retake his position. But in a race where speeds near 60 km/hr that sort of burst can waste precious energy.

“It’s those moments I need to avoid in a race. Those moments cost a lot of energy and have cost me a lot in the past.”

He’s getting better at making rational decisions about when to bide his time.

Where he readily admits to struggling with his emotion is on the sidelines. Watching his girlfriend St-Gelais or his brother Francois compete is the hardest thing he does in short-track, he said.

“When I’m racing I’m in control of what I do.”

When he watches them he can’t help but think what positions they should be going for during the race. “But they’re not doing it, are they okay, are they in trouble or is part of the plan?” he said.

“It’s tough. I find it harder on me, those moments, than racing myself.”

So, will he watch in Sochi or conserve his energy and focus for his own four races in 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m and 5,000m relay?

“Of course I’ll be watching,” he said. “It’s the Olympics.”

The final World Cup in Kolomna, Russia was a confidence booster for Charles and a shot across the bow to his competitors.

In the 1,500m semi-final an American skater trying to pass fell and took him out. They crashed into the boards in a tangled mess with Charles landing hard on his skate boots.

He got up, three laps behind the pack, and finished the race but when he took off his skin suit and the team doctor saw the deep bruises on his left leg he said “you’re not skating again today.”

“Are you kidding me? he said, “I just finished the 1,500m now I want to do the 500m. I just want to race.”

Looking back on it now, he knows they were right. He was in such pain he could barely spin his legs out on the stationary bicycle.

Still, the very next day he ignored the pain to skate his way to another gold medal in 1,000m.

“Just because I have some bruises on my legs doesn’t mean I’m out. I want to race and show people that a little injury like that won’t take me out of a chance at a podium.”

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